So, I had a very strange dream in the wee hours of this morning. Let me explain it:

I was with the Amazing Flatmate and we were hiking up a mountain. It was beautiful. We crossed a bridge which spanned over a beautifully bubbling brook, and came across a convention of some kind - an eastern martial arts meets western martial arts kind of convention. There were wooden cabins all over at various points in this space on the mountain side. Some of them were open (no walls), with tatami mats on the ground and were empty. Other places were tea-house style cabins, with low tables around which people were eating and drinking tea.

There were a lot of people, many of them in various styles of armour, ranging from European styles c. 13th century to Samurai and ancient Chinese armours, and then people running around in period costumes (again, from all places) and others wandering around in plain clothes, so it was also kind of like a Renaissance fair, too.

The Amazing Flatmate and I found an empty cabin - one of the ones without walls - and started mucking about on the tatami mats. As you do.

Well, the occupier of that cabin showed up. He was, in my dream, a famous sensei (at least, I called him Sensei), who looked like an older, live action version of this guy:

This guy was a famous weapons expert, and he offered to let us play with one of his weapons.

This is not a euphemism.

Anyway, he started putting together this weapon (which he carried in pieces) and at first I thought it was a sectioned katana, but no. When he finally revealed the weapon, it was the weird oversized cleaver type thing, with beautifully etched designs on the flat of the blade.

He trained me for a little bit, until his students arrived and play time was over.

The Amazing Flatmate and I wandered around this weird mountain martial arts convention for a bit, ended up hiding in a hotel room there for a little while to eat lunch and discuss which trail we needed to follow in order to get where we were going (this convention thingy was not our planned destination, apparently, just a really cool random encounter along the way).

We resolved to set off, but before that I went back to the sensei, who was sitting beside his top student, a man I recognised as the all-time champion Asian weapons fighter. He wore a set of blue Samurai armour.

I thanked the sensei, who very graciously and warmly shook my hand and wished us a safe journey up the mountain.

Then I heard thunder, and old men yelling "DOVAHKIIN!" And I woke up.

By the way, the thunder clap and call from the Grey Beards is my alarm. I like to wake up in epic fashion. It doesn't always work.

...

Dovahkiin needs five more minutes.

Anyway, that was my bizarre dream. Any dream experts want to take a crack at its meaning?

I have the formatted copy of Sky Road Walker to inspect and approve, so I must dash.